New Study: No Link Between Crime and Undocumented Immigrants
New York Times article: Is There a Connection Between Undocumented Immigrants and Crime? (excerpt below)
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Source: Mother Jones
8 HOURS AGO
New Study: No Link Between Crime and Undocumented Immigrants
KEVIN DRUM
Political Blogger
We have a new study on whether there’s an association between crime and undocumented immigrants. Today the New York Times reports on the change in crime vs. the change in undocumented immigrants in about a hundred metro areas across the country over the period 2007-2016. In general, of course, crime rates have fallen during that time. But have they fallen more or less in areas with big growth in undocumented immigrants? Here are the results:
The headline here is correct: you certainly can’t say that crime goes up when undocumented immigration increases, but you can’t really say it goes down either. The trendline is basically flat given the quality of the data we have.
This has always made sense. The vast majority of undocumented immigrants come to America to work. The last thing they want is a run-in with the law, even for the most trivial offense. They have far more incentive to avoid criminal behavior than native Americans do.
This study is just a correlation between populations, so it’s inherently not foolproof and it certainly won’t stop the argument about illegal immigration and crime. That said, there are lots of other studies out there that have come to much the same conclusion. None of them are perfect, but put them all together and it’s pretty clear that there’s really nothing here. Undocumented immigrants don’t commit crimes any more than us native Americans do.
https://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2019/05/new-study-no-link-between-crime-and-undocumented-immigrants/
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Source: New York Times
Is There a Connection Between Undocumented Immigrants and Crime?
It’s a widely held perception, but a new analysis finds no evidence to support it.
By Anna Flagg
May 13, 2019
A lot of research has shown that there’s no causal connection between immigration and crime in the United States. But after one such study was reported on jointly by The Marshall Project and The Upshot last year, readers had one major complaint: Many argued it was unauthorized immigrants who increase crime, not immigrants over all.
An analysis derived from new data is now able to help address this question, suggesting that growth in illegal immigration does not lead to higher local crime rates.
In part because it’s hard to collect data on them, undocumented immigrants have been the subjects of few studies, including those related to crime. But the Pew Research Center recently released estimates of undocumented populations sorted by metro area, which The Marshall Project has compared with local crime rates published by the F.B.I. For the first time, there is an opportunity for a broader analysis of how unauthorized immigration might have affected crime rates since 2007.
A large majority of the areas recorded decreases in both violent and property crime between 2007 and 2016, consistent with a quarter-century decline in crime across the United States. The analysis found that crime went down at similar rates regardless of whether the undocumented population rose or fell. Areas with more unauthorized migration appeared to have larger drops in crime, although the difference was small and uncertain.
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Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/13/upshot/illegal-immigration-crime-rates-research.html
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